House or Travel?

Karumba, QLD, AU

As our time wound down in Australia we found ourselves having a difficult conversation about a choice we could not had foreseen coming when we first started this adventure.

Karumba beach sunset

Like we said last week, we had a good time “living the dream” and we were successful at said dream; we had completed what we originally set out to do.  Much more than what we originally planned actually, as this whole “sailing to Australia by way of Tahiti” kind of came together on the fly.  What we had not anticipated was that the dream would actually be fairly profitable. You see, Australia had been good to us on the job front and their wages for the jobs we worked were, when compared to the United States, 2 – 3 times higher than what we would have been paid in the states.  Alongside that we had watched our money very carefully and saved every chance we got.  Also don’t forget there were 2 of us. What that all boils down to is that when we originally planned our trip, we had not expected to leave Australia with a surplus of cash. As it turns out, we did have quite a reasonable surplus…which led us to a question we weren’t sure how to answer:

House or Travel?

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Backpacker Jobs How-to

Karumba, QLD, AU

100_3110How the heck are we doing this?

This article comes by way of a reader.  Travis asks:

“I love to travel and have recently come to the decision that I should spend my youth doing what I love.  I found your blog while searching the internet for how to get it done, and it was like a diamond in the rough.  My tentative plan is similar to your own.  I’m going to be here probably another year.  In that time I’m going to work and save to start my trip.

But my real question comes once I get where I want to go.  That place is Australia and I would like to live and work there for awhile.  Maybe making my way towards Europe if I can really save some good money while I’m there (in Australia).  This is the point where I start wondering if that’s all just wishful thinking.  I’m a little foggy on the whole “working in a foreign country and actually making more money there than I would here in the US” part.  For instance, How do you find a job? Place to live?  If you do why are employers and landlords so okay with the idea that you would only be there for a couple months?”

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Quirky Melbourne

Melbourne, VIC, AU

Then one day about a month into it, we woke up and realized that cleaning up horse poop at 3:45am 6 days a week sucks.  In our defense, we were kinda tired that month so it took a while.

Now that were done “playing with horses” we actually had the time to start exploring this town.  Melbourne is one of Australia’s largest cities.  It didn’t occur to us what that would mean to two people who spent the previous year wondering around island countries with national populations smaller than most European villages.

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